Update: Facebook CSO Alex Stamos tweeted the following on Monday evening in the wake of The New York Times report:

Despite the rumors, I'm still fully engaged with my work at Facebook. It's true that my role did change. I'm currently spending more time exploring emerging security risks and working on election security.

The project aims to put thousands of solar panels and batteries on South Australian homes, starting with public Housing Trust properties, to create a 250MW distributed "power plant," which can respond to grid signals and isolate itself (or "island") during outages. The project would have received a AU$2 million (US$1.54 million) grant from the state, as well as AU$30 million (US$23.16 million) in state-backed loans.

Marshall's objection to the project seems to be rooted in its structure rather than in a blanket opposition to energy storage. On Monday, when a reporter asked Marshall about the plan to outfit Housing Trust homes with solar panels and batteries, he replied, "That's not part of our agenda. Our agenda is 40,000 homes." The 40,000 homes is a reference to Marshall's plan to put up $100 million in subsidies to offer a $2,500 grant on each battery storage unit installed at 40,000 homes.

An Uber self-driving car in Tempe, Arizona has struck and killed a pedestrian, according to local TV news station KNXV. Local authorities have identified the victim as 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg.

According to the Tempe Police, "occurred overnight on Mill Ave. just south of Curry Rd." Herzberg was pushing her bicycle across the street when the Uber vehicle, which was traveling northbound, hit her.

"She was transported to a local area hospital where she passed away from her injuries," the police said in a statement.

Federal judges have struck down an anti-robocall rule, saying that the Federal Communications Commission improperly treated every American who owns a smartphone as a potential robocaller.

The FCC won't be appealing the court decision, as Chairman Ajit Pai opposed the rule changes when they were implemented by the commission's then-Democratic majority in 2015. Pai issued a statement praising the judges for the decision Friday, calling the now-vacated rule "yet another example of the prior FCC’s disregard for the law and regulatory overreach."

The FCC's 2015 decision said that a device meets the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) definition of an "autodialer" if it can be modified to make robocalls, even if the smartphone user hasn't actually downloaded an autodialing app.

Enlarge/ A crop monitoring robot: Like a Roomba, but with more sensors and responsibility. (credit: Megan Geuss)

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD—Last week's ARPA-E summit was full of big ideas about the future of energy, and nowhere was that more evident than on the summit's show floor. In the basement of the sprawling Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center, dozens of academic institutions and companies set up booths to show off what they had been working on with their grant money.

From cars to recycling to electricity-generating turbines to biofuels, the warehouse temporarily turned into a montage of earl-stage ideas. Most importantly, it also showed off the breadth of ARPA-E's work: though the Department of Energy's early-stage grant program has at times been cast as an accelerator for renewable energy exclusively, ARPA-E projects span a variety of fuels and even include some non-energy projects whose application could save industry a significant amount of energy.

The price of ether, the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, has fallen below $500 for the first time this year. The decline comes days after a senior official from the Securities and Exchange Commission acknowledged that the agency had "dozens" of open investigations into initial coin offerings. The price of ether has fallen 19 percent in the last 24 hours, from $580 to $470.

“We’re doing obviously a lot in the crypto space, and we’re seeing a lot in the crypto space,” said Stephanie Avakian, co-director of the SEC's Enforcement Division, at a conference on Thursday. “We are very active, and I would just expect to see more and more."

The SEC's decision to aggressively police cryptocurrency offerings is particularly significant for the Ethereum community because many new cryptocurrency offerings are built on top of the Ethereum platform. People creating a new token on the Ethereum blockchain need to buy ether, the currency used to pay for Ethereum transactions. So if aggressive SEC enforcement ends the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) boom—which seems to be cooling anyway—it would remove a major factor that pushed ether's value upward during 2017.

Yesterday, users in Iran lost access to Apple's App Store. When users attempted to connect or download apps, they received a message saying that the App Store was "unavailable in the country or region" in which they resided. The cessation of services began around noon GMT yesterday, and services resumed around 5:00am GMT this morning, according to social media posts and sources who spoke with Bleeping Computer. A virtual private network (VPN) could still reach the App Store normally.

Media coverage and social media posts were quick to speculate that the store's downtime was an Apple-imposed ban driven by US economic sanctions against Iran, as Apple is based in the US. However, we are not yet aware of evidence to support this. An accidental outage is also possible, as is a block imposed by Iran's government—Iran has previously blocked the Google Play store, though that block was later lifted. Apple has not responded to our requests for clarification.

Because of US sanctions, Apple has no formal presence or operation in Iran, and its App Store is not officially supported there. The company does not sell phones there, nor does it work with any vendors that do. It nevertheless had an 11-percent market share in the country as of last year, as Iranians have purchased millions of iPhones smuggled in from other countries. Iranian app developers have published apps to the App Store for use by Iranian iPhone owners.

On Wednesday, the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) ruled that municipal power companies could charge higher electricity rates to cryptocurrency miners who try to benefit from the state's abundance of cheap hydroelectric power.

Over the years, Bitcoin's soaring price has drawn entrepreneurs to mining. Bitcoin mining enterprises have become massive endeavors, consuming megawatts of power on some grids. To minimize the cost of that considerable power draw, mining companies have tried to site their operations in towns with cheap electricity, both in the US and around the world. In the US, regions with the cheapest energy tend to be small towns with hydroelectric power. (Politico recently wrote extensively about the Bitcoin mining boom in Washington state's mid-Columbia valley, a hotspot for cheap hydro.)

But mining booms in small US towns are not always met with approval. A group of 36 municipal power authorities in northern and western New York petitioned the PSC for permission to raise electricity rates for cryptocurrency miners because their excessive power use has been taxing very small local grids and causing rates to rise for other customers.

Enlarge/ Take a selfie in front of your new hideout? IARPA's Finder program aims to turn that photo into a kaboom. (credit: U.S. Army photo by Spc. Jacob Krone)

Imagine if someone could scan every image on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, then instantly determine where each was taken. The ability to combine this location data with information about who appears in those photos—and any social media contacts tied to them—would make it possible for government agencies to quickly track terrorist groups posting propaganda photos. (And, really, just about anyone else.)

For many photos taken with smartphones (and with some consumer cameras), geolocation information is saved with the image by default. The location is stored in the Exif (Exchangable Image File Format) data of the photo itself unless geolocation services are turned off. If you have used Apple's iCloud photo store or Google Photos, you've probably created a rich map of your pattern of life through geotagged metadata. However, this location data is pruned off for privacy reasons when images are uploaded to some social media services, and privacy-conscious photographers (particularly those concerned about potential drone strikes) will purposely disable geotagging on their devices and social media accounts.

Enlarge/ Net neutrality supporters rally for Title II reclassification of broadband in front of the White House in November 2014. (credit: Stephen Melkisethian)

The biggest lobby groups representing broadband providers will help the Federal Communications Commission defend the repeal of net neutrality rules in court.

Yesterday, three trade groups that collectively represent every major home Internet and mobile broadband provider in the US filed motions to intervene in the case on behalf of the FCC. The motions for leave to intervene were filed by NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, CTIA–The Wireless Association, and USTelecom–The Broadband Association. (Yes, those are the organizations' correct names.)

NCTA represents cable companies such as Comcast, Charter, Cox, and Altice. CTIA represents the biggest mobile carriers, such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, and Sprint. USTelecom represents wireline telcos with copper and fiber networks, such as AT&T and Verizon. All three groups also represent a range of smaller ISPs.

Washington, the first US state to pass a net neutrality law after the repeal of federal rules, might have to get ready for a court battle.

Washington's legislature and governor defied the Federal Communications Commission's claim that states cannot implement their own net neutrality rules, and they are likely to face a lawsuit from Internet service providers or their lobby groups. But the legislation's primary sponsor, State Rep. Drew Hansen (D-Bainbridge Island), is confident that the state will win in court.

Hansen is also a trial lawyer and has litigated preemption questions, he told Ars in an interview this week.

Enlarge/ GM hopes to start manufacturing this car, with no steering wheel, gas, or brake pedals, next year. (credit: General Motors)

In January, General Motors unveiled the Cruise AV, a car designed to have no steering wheel and no gas or brake pedals. It seems like science fiction, but GM is completely serious about the project. On Wednesday, GM announced that it is investing $100 million in manufacturing facilities for the new car, with a goal of introducing a commercial taxi service using the vehicles by the end of next year.

But how quickly these cars actually show up on our roads will depend on Congress. Current safety rules require every car to have a steering wheel and pedals—making a car like the Cruise AV illegal without a special exemption. The rules can be changed by regulators, but the rulemaking process typically takes years to complete. So car and technology companies have been lobbying Congress for an expedited process to allow tens of thousands of vehicles like the Cruise AV on the roads ahead of a full rewrite of the safety regulations.

The House of Representatives easily passed a version of this legislation, called the SELF DRIVE Act, last September. But the Senate's companion legislation, known as the AV START Act, has been making slow progress. With midterm elections looming, insiders say the next few months are crucial. If the Senate doesn't pass the AV START Act soon, large-scale manufacturing of vehicles like the Cruise AV could be pushed well into the next decade.

The Treasury Department announced new economic sanctions today on the Russian Federation and on individuals and organizations implicated in interference with the 2016 US presidential elections—just as the Department of Homeland Security released a new warning of new "Russian government cyber activity" aimed at the US government and US critical infrastructure providers.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the sanctions, explaining that "the administration is confronting and countering malign Russian cyber activity, including their attempted interference in US elections, destructive cyber-attacks, and intrusions targeting critical infrastructure." The new sanctions, he said, are part of "a broader effort to address the ongoing nefarious attacks emanating from Russia. Treasury intends to impose additional CAATSA sanctions, informed by our intelligence community, to hold Russian government officials and oligarchs accountable for their destabilizing activities by severing their access to the US financial system."

A US District Court judge has dismissed the lawsuit filed by the father of Ahmed Mohamed, a boy who brought a homemade clock to school and then was arrested on charges of bringing a hoax bomb to the school.

Mohamed was a 14-year-old freshman when the incident happened at his high school in Irving, Texas in September 2015. The charge against Mohamed was dropped, and the boy gained public support from President Obama, who invited him to the White House after saying that "we should inspire more kids like you to like science."

Mohamed's father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, filed a lawsuit against the Irving Independent School District, school principal Daniel Cummings, the City of Irving, and police officers Robin Howman, Charles Taylor, Jeff Mitchell, and Richie Miller. The lawsuit alleged that Mohamed, an African-American Muslim, was discriminated against based on his race and religion.

On March 14, UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats in response to a March 4 "military grade" nerve agent attack that poisoned former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, as well as a police detective who visited his home in Salisbury, England. Dozens of other people may have also been exposed to the nerve agent in a pub and restaurant the Skripals visited before they were found unconscious on a bench.

UK law enforcement and security officials have said that the nerve agent used in the attack was one of a series of chemical weapons developed by the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War known as Novichok, or "newcomer." Today, the leaders of the UK, the US, France, and Germany issued a joint statement condemning Russia for the attack, stating that it "constitutes the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second World War," and demanding full disclosure of the Novichok program by Russia to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg offered "practical support" if May's government requests it, saying the attack "has no place in a civilized world." And further diplomatic action from France and Germany against Russia is expected.

Enlarge/ An Iraqi Air Force AC-208 Eliminator fires a Hellfire missile. Afghanistan is getting seven of these aircraft courtesy of the US Air Force. (credit: US Air Force)

The US military has fought the Taliban in Afghanistan for 16 years now, and it frequently has done so from the skies with Hellfire strikes by Predator and Reaper drones. Now the US is buying the Afghan military something with the same sort of sensors, loitering time, and firepower—except humans will have to sit in their cockpits.

The contract for the Eliminators was originally issued last September, and part of the $86 million is coming out of fiscal-year 2017 funds. The original sole-source contract was for $69.4 million but was expanded in the award made this past week.

The once-darling Silicon Valley startup that promised to revolutionize the blood-testing industry and fetched a valuation of $9 billion may have finally been dealt a death blow.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday charged Theranos Inc., its founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes, and former President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani with “massive fraud” after a lengthy investigation. The SEC alleges that they raised $700 million in investments by orchestrating an “elaborate, years-long fraud in which they exaggerated or made false statements about the company’s technology, business, and financial performance.”

Without admitting or denying wrongdoing, Theranos and Holmes have agreed to settle the charges. As part of the settlement, Holmes will pay a $500,000 penalty, be barred from serving as a director or officer of a public company for 10 years, return her remaining 18.9 million shares obtained during the alleged fraud, and relinquish her voting control of Theranos. If Theranos is sold or liquidated, Holmes will not profit until more than $750 million is returned to allegedly defrauded investors and other shareholders.

Cruise, the driverless car startup that's now a subsidiary of General Motors, has announced plans to launch a fully driverless taxi service by the end of next year. But a new report from The Information suggests that the company still needs to make a lot of progress to hit this ambitious target.

In recent months, Cruise has been ramping up testing efforts in a roughly 20-square-mile area in and around downtown San Francisco. Sources familiar with that testing effort told The Information's Amir Efrati that Cruise vehicles still had significant limitations.

"Cruise cars frequently swerve and hesitate," Efrati reports. "They sometimes slow down or stop if they see a bush on the side of a street or a lane-dividing pole, mistaking it for an object in their path." In one case, Efrati says, Cruise employees trimmed a bush ahead of a demonstration for journalists to make sure the car wouldn't swerve while driving past it.

Enlarge/ DETROIT, USA - JANUARY 15: Model of a Saudi Aramco internal combustion engine is on display during the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 15, 2018. (Photo by David Graff/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images)

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD—A Wednesday morning panel at the ARPA-E summit provocatively asked if the auto industry is about to see ”The End of the Road for the Internal Combustion Engine?”

Though all the panel members agreed that gas- and diesel-based systems are on a path to losing market share, none would admit that the internal combustion engine (ICE) would be completely replaced by the electric vehicle (EV). At least before 2050. So what do industry leaders think will happen or should happen to the evolution of drivetrains in the future?

Perhaps the most interesting perspective came from Amitai Bin-Nun, a vice president in charge of autonomous vehicle innovation for the nonprofit Securing America’s Future Energy, or SAFE. Bin-Nun argued that, without a transition to autonomous vehicles, EVs would not see the mass-market adoption that boosters have been hoping for.

A proposed net neutrality law in California would replace the repealed federal regulations, going beyond the federal rules by banning payments for data cap exemptions. If passed, the bill would ban AT&T's Sponsored Data, Verizon's "FreeBee" data, and any similar programs imposed by home or mobile Internet providers.

The bill would also try to prevent interconnection payment disputes that harm Internet service quality—such as those between Netflix and major ISPs in 2013 and 2014.

The legislation "is the first state-level bill that would comprehensively secure all of the net neutrality protections that Americans currently enjoy," according to Stanford law professor Barbara van Schewick. (The Federal Communications Commission repeal hasn't taken effect yet.)